A NATION CHALLENGED: THE AFGHAN-AMERICANS

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE AFGHAN-AMERICANS; Exiles, Torn Between Countries, Want to Help Rebuild Afghanistan

Published: February 10, 2002

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Most of the young people have worked hard, too. Mr. Sherdel lived through 10 years of war in Afghanistan and arrived in the United States when he was 14. He supported his family by working at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant when he was in high school, and he attended the University of Virginia after graduating fourth in his class. For him, and for others, to go back would be to realize a long-held family dream.

''I remember my father, when the summers would be 100 degrees he would be outside laying tar,'' said Nadia Aman, 25, a systems analyst in Springfield, Va. Her father was a high official in the Afghan finance ministry in the 1970's. ''For over 10 years, we didn't buy a house because there was always talk of going back,'' Ms. Aman said.

Some can capitalize on their family names. Mr. Sherdel is the grandson of a former mayor of Kandahar. Mr. Niayz, the contractor, is the son of a prominent factory owner. Raihana Rasouli, 28, the executive director of the Afghanistan America Foundation, is the granddaughter of a former mayor of Kabul. Two years ago, she founded her own group, Afghans 4 Tomorrow.

''We have no funds, no grants; for two years we have been doing this from our own pockets,'' Ms. Rasouli said. Her brother, 23, is in Afghanistan assessing the country's needs, and she plans a trip in March. ''You have to go there and feel the people, feel the land, see the land,'' she said.

As Afghan-Americans organize financially, they are also organizing politically.

Among their leaders is Waheed Momand, 52, a biomedical engineer who left Afghanistan in 1982, three years after the Soviet invasion. Among Afghans' tales, his is familiar. He and his wife trekked through the mountains to Pakistan, mostly on foot. They lived there as refugees, then made their way to Germany, to be reunited with their daughter, who had been sent to live with grandparents. Today, the family lives in Northern California, where Dr. Momand is president of an umbrella organization, the Afghan Coalition.

Until Sept. 11, groups like Dr. Momand's concentrated on social and cultural matters and helping Afghan immigrants. More recently, they have been electing delegates to represent them in dealings with the United States and the new government in Afghanistan. The Northern California election was on Jan. 6.

''This was really the first democratic election ever held in any Afghan community in more than 30 years,'' Dr. Momand said. ''That was really an historic thing.''

Despite the determination of Dr. Momand and others to return, it is unlikely that many Afghan-American professionals will move home for good. Some of the young ones, like Mr. Sherdel and Ms. Aman, support their parents financially and are not free to leave. The older ones have children to worry about.

Dr. Jahan said she was investigating boarding school in the United States for her daughter. Asked if the separation would be difficult, she recalled a conversation with her own mother, who died in India a year after the family left Afghanistan.

''I said, 'Mommy, how could you love your country so much you would die for it?' She laughed at me. She said, 'You are too young to understand that your duty is to your country.' Now I understand.''

Photos: Zalmi Niayz, a contractor in Annandale, Va., with the deed to his family's Kabul house, which he hopes to reclaim for charity workers.; Dr. Sheila Jahan, a neurologist, said: ''My plan is to have a clinic, to go for one month, then come back for three months here. It is my duty.'' (Photographs by Susana Raab for The New York Times)